Succulents and More™

Yucca ‘Bright Star’ is one of those plants that stop you in your tracks the first time you see them. It’s just that beautiful. I had one from 2017 to 2023 and have been looking for another one ever since. My original ‘Bright Star’ came from my friend Hoover Boo ( Piece of Eden ) in Southern California. After seeing hers ( here ), I knew I needed to have one. Fortunately, she had a source and was able to get me a 2-gallon plant. It bloomed for the first time in November 2022, producing a glorious display of bell-shaped flowers. November 2022 Yuccas are polycarpic, meaning they don’t die after flowering like most agaves do. Technically, I could have enjoyed this stunning spectacle every year from then on. Unfortunately, my ‘Bright Star’ split into multiple heads after flowering, ruining the beautiful symmetry of a single rosette. It got even worse when I noticed suckers popping up around the mother plant: I had visions of a messy clump — most definitely not the look I wanted. I knew I w...

It’s almost mid-June. Don’t get me started on how quickly time is flying by! After a weird winter and a long and mild spring, summer is here with a vengeance. Temperatures above the century mark are forecast for the next few days. I did some advance watering to help the garden handle the unaccustomed heat. To make matters worse, it’s pretty windy, too. Think convection oven. Fortunately, this heatwave looks to be fairly short. Back into the low 90s next week. Remember the rat(s) that nibbled on my Astrophytum cacti a while ago? I caught one in early May and foolishly let myself be lulled into complacency. Of course that wasn’t the end of it: Another Astrophytum asterias nibbled on in the greenhouse Oddly enough, the cacti that were chewed on were all astrophytums. Nothing else. I have no idea what it is about astrophytums in particular, but clearly rats and mice prefer them over anything else in my greenhouse. With two electric rat zapper traps going, it was only a matter of time u...